I try to be prepared for the moment, through understanding, and being warmed up, knowing all about chords and scales, so I don't even have to think and I can get right to what it is I want to say.

Its more about conception and touch and spirit and soul than whether my hardware was in place.

My first relationship to any kind of musical situation is as a listener.

Listening is the key to everything good in music.

One very fundamental thing has not changed and I realized that it will never change... is that I really need to go home and practice.

People sometimes say it takes a long time to become a Jazz fan, but for me it took about five seconds.

Most guys at Berklee are going to wind up truck drivers.

More and more as time has gone on, I realize that playing is really more about listening than it is about playing.

Smokin' at the Half Note is the absolute greatest jazz-guitar album ever made. It is also the record that taught me how to play.

Learning to play is mostly about learning to hear, and learning to really listen deeply to sound in a musical way is a lifetime's worth of work.

Jazz is an idea that is more powerful than the details of its history.

I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion'.

Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming.

It is my earnest hope, and indeed the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past...

He seemed, indeed, to accept everything without the least condemnation though often grieving bitterly.

I voted for President Bush. I voted for President Clinton and although I do want my vote back, I voted for President Obama.

You better wake up before it's too late, or they'll be doing your makeup down at the coroner's place.

Lucky people create, notice, and act upon the chance opportunities in their lives.

Too much has been said of the heroes of history-the strong men, the troublesome men; too little of the amiable, the kindly, the tolerant.

I love history. It was the only thing I did well at in school. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was not a good student but I was great at history.

I believe today that there is no film and no shot in a film that is worth a squirrel getting a sprained ankle.